Tuesday, March 5, 2013

What I Should Have Said

I spent from 1am until 10am in the triage cubicle before having an emergency c-section. The private labor rooms were all filled up, and I guess they decided that since I wasn't going to labor, I didn't need my own room. I just needed to wait out some time until the c-section would happen.

For me, hospitals are overwhelming places. Triage is even more so. Doctors and nurses kept coming in and out to see me or to see other women. Other women would come in to be admitted. They would eventually get transferred to actual rooms. Random machines and phones kept beeping. Visitors streamed in and out.

I remember passing the time by talking to my husband and my doula and my parents when they got there at about 6am. I remember feeling mad.

At one point, one of the doctors came in to my partitioned area. I can't remember if he was an anesthesiologist or an obgyn who was going to perform the c-section. He, quickly, got frustrated with me because I didn't focus on what he was saying.

Very crossly, he said, "I am the most important person in this room. You need to listen to me."

Unfortunately, I did what he said and listened. I've replayed this scene in my head countless time since that night. I'm a strong woman who usually has some snappy comeback for insensitive remarks like these. But, that night, I had none.

I wish I had said. "You are not the most important person in the room. My baby is the most important. I'm the next most important, and you are somewhere far down the list. Now, please leave my cubicle and I will deal with a different anesthesiologist/obgyn. Thank you."

By the time my c-section came around, that doctor was no longer on duty, so I never saw him again.